Morris Almond's 14.0 scoring average in Vegas may warrant a further look by the Knicks come training camp. NBAE/Getty Images

Las Vegas, NV - Phil Weber knew he was about to become a target if things didn’t change in a hurry.

“As a coach you want to win,” he said prior to the Knicks’ Summer League finale. “We’re sitting at oh-and-four right now. I’m going to have to take ribbing all year if we don’t get a W right now.”

Oh-and-four turned into oh-and-five when the Knicks lost to the Washington Wizards, 89-84 in their final game at the 2009 NBA Summer League presented by EA Sports. It’s a record that will induce some good-natured jibes from Weber’s fellow coaches, but it’s still secondary to the 10-day hoop laboratory-in-the-desert that Summer League has become.

“There’s so many different levels,” said Weber, the effervescent assistant coach who piloted the Knicks’ Summer League team for the second straight year. “There’s training camp for the Summer League team, then there’s the Summer League itself, then there’s pre-season with the veteran guys and then there’s the season itself. So this is just a level for us to evaluate as coaches and the franchise, and to see what we have and what we need to work on when we get back to New York. I think we’ve been very pleased with some of the things that Jordan and Toney have done and we’ve been able to get a look at some other guys.”

First-round Draft Night acquisitions Jordan Hill and Toney Douglas were in the Summer League spotlight all week. The 6-foot-10 Hill averaged 14.4 points and 8.2 rebounds – both team-leading figures-- over the five games. The Arizona product capped the week with a 21-point effort against the Wizards, New York’s high-scoring individual effort of Summer League.

Douglas, who may figure prominently in the Knicks’ point guard rotation this season, notched 9.0 points and 7.0 assists in four games, including two double-figure assist efforts. Toney missed Sunday’s finale against the Wizards with a left calf contusion.

“I think they showed us what we believed that they had,” said Weber of Hill and Douglas. “But it also shows their learning curve is going to be pretty significant in trying to catch up to the way we want to play. It’s just a different type and level of competition. The greatest thing is that they’re just quality individuals, hard-working, and you can always build with that. They have great athleticism, they’re great kids and they’re ready to work.”

Two additional Summer League standouts – who may warrant a further look in training camp come October – were NBA veterans Morris Almond and Nikoloz Tskitishvili. Almond, who played in 25 games for the Utah Jazz last season, averaged 14.0 points over the five games, and may work his way into the backcourt mix a few months down the road. Meanwhile, the seven-foot Tskitishvili went 12-for-28 from three-point range and put up Summer League averages of 12.4 points and 5.0 rebounds. The fifth overall pick of the 2002 NBA Draft (by Denver), the journeyman Tskitishvili is seeking an NBA return after playing in Spain last season.

“Morris definitely showed that he can make shots in our system, which is key,” said Weber. “You’re always trying to become a better shooting team, especially the way we play. And he competed and he defended at a pretty high level. So he’s one of those guys that, over the course of the next three, four months, we’ll take a look at.

“And with Tskita, we kind of knew what we were going to get with him. He’s been around for a long time; Mike (D’Antoni) coached him in Italy for a little bit. He’s played well in some games, but there’s things you have to focus on to see if it’s going to be an issue with the big team.”

The Knicks came closest to breaking into the win column in their next-to-last Summer League game. Leading by 10 over the Bulls with less than five minutes left, they allowed a 19-3 Chicago run in the closing minutes and lost, 90-84. The following day, New York pulled to within one point of Washington with under four minutes left, only to see the Wizards end the game on a 8-4 push.

All of which was part of the bigger learning experience.

“You want to win but it’s about the franchise, it’s about doing things to take a look at guys,” said Weber. “A lot of times during the course of a (Summer League) game, you’re not making decisions based on winning. You’re making decisions based on how you evaluate certain people.

“As a whole, the three days we had as training camp was great. They fought, they competed. I thought there were times over the course of these last games where, for whatever reason, the level of competitiveness could have been higher.”

From a purely competitive standpoint, the Knicks may have been hamstrung by the fact that this year’s Summer League squad was made up purely of rookies and free agents, in addition to 2009 first rounders Hill and Douglas. In past years, young veterans like Nate Robinson, Renaldo Balkman, Mardy Collins and Wilson Chandler honed their NBA games with stints in Las Vegas.

This year, both Chandler (ankle) and second-year pro Danilo Gallinari (back) are recovering from surgery and missed Summer League play.

“Along those lines, I’m driving back to the hotel last night after getting beat right at the end, and all I could think about was how great it would have been,” said a wistful Weber.

“Because if Gallo was healthy, he would have played. He’s only 20. Wil’s only 22, he would have played, he was all set to play. So with starting a lineup of Toney Douglas, Morris Almond, Gallo, Wil and Hill; I think I would have been a little bit happier at the end of this week.”

With Summer League completed, some of the most important work of the year continues, out of the public eye. The traditional “slow” summer months are no more, “off-season” is truly a misnomer, and the countdown to training camp takes many forms.

“What happens is the younger players, especially, are going to be under our tutelage,” said Weber. “Players are made in the summer, so we’ll have coaches working with them all the time. We’ll give them a couple of days off, let them recoup a little bit. For instance, with Jordan and Toney and Gallo, some of the guys will do a little bit of travelling. Wilson will be really putting a lot of time in. The remainder of July and August is based on individual stuff.

“But now is when the work happens. Now is when certain guys who need to work on their shot or a certain aspect of their game, that’s when you can really focus. Realistically, when the season starts, the guys are trying to learn the plays and different things and you just don’t have as much time on their individual skill development. So these are an important ten weeks.”